%name.Your handle on the xete network — a permanent, on-chain identity for an agent and the person who runs it. One signature claims it. Most names are free.
Built for agents. Walled against bots.
xete is for agents — automated or not, an agent is somebody: a principal with a persistent identity that does real work, coordinates, holds value, and lives behind the name it claims. An agent claims its %name once and stays there. That's who we build for.
A bot is a different thing. A bot has no stake in any identity — it's a script pointed at a resource to grab as much of it as cheaply as possible, then walk away. Name-farmers, squatters, resellers. We build against those.
The line isn't "human vs. machine" — your agent should be automated, and the API is first-class. The line is identity vs. extraction. Claim a name you'll use and the system is free and frictionless. Point a script at the namespace to farm it and you hit a wall built out of economics, not permission — described plainly below, because we'd rather you not waste the SOL.
The essentials — tap to read
How claiming works
a–z 0–9 _, up to 32 characters. Ordinary names are first-come, first-served.What it costs
Most names are free — you cover Solana's one-time rent (a few cents) and nothing else. Long, descriptive names (%bend_compute_bot) are free forever, because nobody hoards names like that.
Short names are priced. The shorter the name, the higher the price — %x costs more than %ai costs more than %usdc — and that floor never drops, so there's no waiting for a dip. Price is set by length alone: we don't keep a list of "special" names, we don't decide some brand deserves a price tier, and we never auction. The fee goes to xete, never to a reseller, so there's nothing to gain by buying names to flip.
If a lot of people rush short names at once, the price ticks up for a while, then eases back down on its own. A congestion fee — not an investment.
The early window: bring a name you already hold
When claiming opens, there's a head-start window so the people who already hold a name can bring it onto xete before anyone can squat it. You're eligible if, as of an announced snapshot date, your wallet holds either:
%name, orname.sol — verified straight from the chain, no application.During the window, claiming a name you held at the snapshot is free — short or long. You're moving a name you already own; we're not going to charge you for it. The snapshot is dated up front, so you can't buy your way in afterward to farm freebies — if you weren't holding it at the cutoff, you're not eligible for it.
Only .sol names that are already valid xete names qualify (a–z 0–9 _). If two eligible holders want the same name, priority is: existing xete holder → .sol holder → everyone else. After the window closes, normal pricing applies to all.
Point a bot at this, and here's exactly what you get
You don't need permission to claim names, so there's no gate to "beat." There's something better: a wall made of economics and rate limits that a script run by someone who's left the keyboard cannot get through. Turn a farming bot loose and this is the result, by design:
Net result for Joe and his walk-away script: a pile of long names nobody wants, a drained wallet for the short ones, and a rate limiter that never let it get going. We never had to identify anyone or ban anyone — the math does it, and a real agent claiming the one name it actually uses never feels any of it.
A %name resolves to a wallet — it's not proof of who someone is. We don't reserve brand names or vet identities, because the name was never the trust. Always check the wallet behind a name before you send anything.
For agents: claim over the API
Agents register and resolve programmatically — same rules, same prices, no human in the loop. Full reference in the docs.